22.12.2025, 11:33
Zur Diskussion um den Bau von südkoreanischen Atom-U-Booten - und zugleich ein Hinweis, warum atomar angetriebene U-Boote hinsichtlich der strategisch-geographischen Lage Südkoreas im Grunde nicht die richtige Antwort sind.
Schneemann
Zitat:How nuclear submarines could pave the way for nuclear weapons in South Korea [...]https://thebulletin.org/2025/12/how-nucl...uth-korea/
The United States’ recent nuclear submarine deal with South Korea is a tightrope act for a different reason. Lost in the noise about nuclear submarines, the Trump administration has agreed to let South Korea enrich uranium and reprocess commercial nuclear spent fuel. This step—which could give South Korea a virtual or latent nuclear weapons capability—is needlessly destabilizing. [...]
South Korea has sought nuclear-powered submarines for more than 30 years. Sparked by the first international crisis over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, Seoul has dabbled in the relevant technologies in an on-again, off-again fashion. Past forays included a 1994 directive to the Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute to design a nuclear-powered submarine (cancelled in 1998) and the so-called “362” covert task force formed in 2003 that reportedly utilized Russian help to design a submarine reactor. This task force was disbanded in 2004 after South Korean officials revealed that scientists had enriched uranium without declaring it to the International Atomic Energy Agency. More recently, Moon Jae-in campaigned on South Korea acquiring nuclear-powered submarines in 2017, and Korean officials since 2020 have suggested that their next generation of submarines would be nuclear-powered. [...]
Per unit, a single modern diesel-electric attack submarine with air-independent propulsion costs between $500 million and $900 million. A modern nuclear-powered attack submarine will cost between $3 billion and $4 billion each, based on the current cost of Virginia-class nuclear attack submarines in the United States, a country with experience in building such ships. This is on top of the considerable investment in shipbuilding that countries like South Korea and Australia would have to make. For instance, South Korea has vowed to invest $350 billion in the United States, of which half will be spent on US shipbuilding. [...]
The benefits of nuclear-powered submarines are well-known, including unlimited range, stealth, and speed. But a closer look at South Korea’s requirements suggests that those benefits are ill-matched to South Korea’s strategic challenges. South Korean officials have stated they need nuclear-powered submarines to counter North Korea’s missiles and nuclear weapons. North Korea does not yet have a nuclear-powered submarine, but it can operate in the relatively shallow West Sea (Yellow Sea), where large, nuclear-powered subs cannot. In the East Sea, North Korea has demonstrated it can deploy 50 or more submarines simultaneously—an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) nightmare for South Korea. According to one US naval analyst, South Korea would be much better off devoting its resources to ASW in coordination with the United States.
Schneemann